board8fandomcom-20200216-history
Heroic Mario's Top 40 Games + More (September 2010 Edition)
Heroic Mario brings you his latest game-related lists at the end of 2010. It's a-Heroic-Mario time! Top 40 Games 40) Final Fantasy IX (PS1) I'm not sure exactly where I had FFIX the last time I made a list, but it was probably closer to the top 10 than the top 50. This will seem like a rather drastic drop, and in some ways it kinda is, but it's not so much the game's fault as it is my increasing lack of interest in RPGs, Japanese and Western both. There are more than a few that were top of the line in years past that aren't anymore. I dunno, it's not that I dislike these games less necessarily, but that I like other games more. Anyway, that said, FFIX is a great game. When I think about this game I don't think of the storyline, or the cutscenes / events, but the places you visit, the characters you meet, and the world you explore. In that sense, it captures what makes old school RPGs so good. It has that irresistible charm that makes you overlook any bad points the game may have -- and they are rather numerous. Yeah, the battle system might be slow, half the party might not have any relevance to the plot, the main villain may wear a thong and randomly recite poetry, but who doesn't remember going to Alexandria? Burmecia? The Black Mage Village? Those places are what makes the game to me. The other bright point is the cast. For the most part, I thought they were all pretty good. None of them are deep and meaningful, there's not much development happening from beginning to end, but they work well together and have a little quirk that makes them memorable. Zidane's one of the best Final Fantasy leads, Vivi's got some weird endearing quality that's hard to pin down, Steiner is Steiner, Garnet...you know, I can't remember much about Garnet except that she cuts her hair. I think that was her one pivotal moment, did she even do anything else except get captured by that dumb plant in the beginning of the game? Who knows, who cares! Final Fantasy IX. 39) Street Fighter Alpha 2 (PS1) First things first, if you played the SNES version of SFA2 you have not played this game properly -- there is all sorts of unbearable lag and slowdown that makes it almost unplayable. If you dislike the game, and that's the version you played, it's time to do something about it. I'm not the biggest Alpha series fan. I wasn't too into SFA1, and despite how much people like it, SFA3 never did it for me either. SFA2, though, hits a nice sweet spot. You've got all the Alpha trademarks like air blocking and alpha counters, but without the annoying -isms from SFA3, or the dullness of SFA1 in general. In a lot of ways, this game reminds me of Street Fighter II. There's a solid cast of characters new (Sakura, Guy, Gen, Dan, Charlie, Rose) and old (Ryu, Chun Li, Akuma, Ken, Sagat) without going crazy like SFA3 or SSFIV; there's a simple but useful combo system worked into the game's Super gauge; and the speed of the game is just right, with the option for a Turbo mode if you wanna make it a little faster paced. The 'feel' of the game is good, too. Hits and combos have very nice 'feedback' when you pull them off, which is always satisfying. SFA2 hit all the right points for me, but the problem was that I didn't put nearly as much time into it as I did SF2 or SF3. My friends weren't into learning a new Street Fighter when we had SF2 sitting right there, so what I've played of this has mostly been on my own, with some competitive matches happening only rarely. For that reason, I haven't put enough time into the game to be any kind of authority, but I do know when I played it I had some good fun. I will also say one thing about the Alpha series -- the characters it added have been good, and not a bunch of freakz like SF3. 38) Tomb Raider Anniversary (360) Few, if any, people here are a fan of Tomb Raider. In some ways, I can kinda understand why that is, but then I hear people talking about how they like the mechanics of Prince of Persia or how Uncharted is just 'so good' and I wonder why no one wants to give it a shot. Admittedly, there was a pretty awful stretch for a while where Tomb Raider turned into the equivalent of modern day Sonic, with bad game after bad game until it all completely collapsed with Angel of Darkness. Ever since about 2006, though -- when Crystal Dynamics took over the series -- there has been nothing but good game after good game. We're four games strong now, with the most recent one being Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. You figure people would take notice, but nope! Tomb Raider Anniversary is one of the best remakes / reimaginings I've ever played. I think there's always trouble that can happen when you remake a game, sometimes it ends up being a slave to the original and doesn't make all the updates it should, or it feels 'soulless' in comparison -- The Twin Snakes is a fine example of that. Anniversary, I think, manages to capture the same spirit of the original without being restricted by it. The controls are very fluid, the levels are much larger, you have a rope taken from Legend that lets you swing / pull objects, there's entirely new sections that weren't in the original, there's some cool QTE moments, the puzzles are much more elaborate -- it's a modern game in every sense of the word. The 'scope' of the puzzles is one of the things I love the most about the game. One of the coolest areas in the game is Greece. You begin at the top of this tomb and have to work your way down by grabbing onto ledges, pulling down pillars, shimmying along cracks in the walls, releasing platforms that let you access new areas, and ultimately reach the bottom of the tomb so you can advance and face the boss. It's designed very well, and gives you a good sense of satisfaction once you've cleared everything. Zelda may be known for its puzzle solving, but I don't think any of the recent ones compare to what Anniversary throws at you. It's not so much that they're hard necessarily, but there's a bit more involvement than lighting torches or pushing blocks. There aren't really any problems I have with the game. I wouldn't call it perfect, but I don't think it has any glaring flaws either. I like that there's not as much emphasis on the gunplay (Uncharted this is not), and when there is, it's mostly fighting against BEARS or raptors or bats or something. Cutscenes are also, for the most part, background noise that only appear every so often to keep the story going in one direction -- but never gets in the way of the gameplay. So yeah, good game, would recommend it to anyone that likes action / adventure games. You can't hate something that takes you around the world searching through tombs and fighting BEARS, at least! 37) VVVVVV (PC) VVVVVV might be the best 2D platformer ever. Better than the Marios, better than the Sonics, better than the Mega Mans -- I might have went there! The mechanics in this game are so good, and the controls are as simple as they can get. You press right or left to move, and you press up and down to "jump" -- jumping in this game is more about flipping upside down and right side up and attaching to any surface that's above / below you. Normally, these sorts of games aren't my style -- the ones that are all about brutal difficulty and making you retry parts of a game over and over again until it triggers your muscle memory and you eventually, somehow, against all forces of good in the world, manage to succeed, only to pitted against another impassable obstacle shortly thereafter. V is a bit different in that, while the obstacles are challenging and the amount of retrying can total well into the hundreds by the credit roll, it never feels unfair or frustrating. IWBTG or Jumper this is not. There's also a great checkpoint system that lets you retry right before you run into a new room with a new part to get past, and there are zero loading times so once you're dead you start almost immediately back where you were and can try it again. That alleviates a lot of the potential frustration. I think the other cool thing that sets this apart is the Metroid-style progression system. For what is essentially a 2D platformer, there's a fair amount of non-linearity to the game. You start inside your spaceship, and from there it's up to you where you go and which areas of map you complete first. There aren't any powerups to speak of -- there are tokens, but they're just for the sake of collecting -- and there's no need to backtrack, so it's a bit different in that respect, but the map is laid out like a Metroid game and you have that same sort of freedom to go crazy. Also, this -- 36) Xenogears (PS1) If there were ever an RPG that lived and died based on the player's enjoyment of its storyline, Xenogears is it. It almost doesn't matter how much you enjoy gameplay or the dungeons or the world map -- if you don't find the story and characters interesting and engaging you won't like this game. It's only been a couple of years since I finished Xenogears, but when I think back on it, I couldn't tell you anything about the battle system, or give hints and tips for bosses. I could tell you about all the events that happened in the game, though, because those are what stick with you and where the game shines. It's kinda weird, because if you told me today that there's an awesome RPG that's 50 hours long and very story heavy, I probably wouldn't have much interest in it unless it had a cool art style, or a great looking battle system, to go along with it. I'm not sure exactly why I got hooked on Xenogears -- and I almost put it down after 2 hours because of how bad the pacing was -- but I stuck with it for a while and got hooked on all the crazy nonsense. I got so hooked on it, in fact, that I didn't find disc 2 to be a complete game ruining disaster! Takes skill to do that. Even though it came before them, this is like some weird RPG lovechild of Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4, too -- there's stuff happening that maybe isn't happening, there's a secret shadowy organization of HEADS that controls everything, there's nanomachines, there's crazy ass plot twists that come out of nowhere. I played this...I think, before MGS4 came out, I'm not sure. But either way, when I was playing I kept making this connection to Metal Gear Solid for some reason. They both have the same sort of vibe coming from them, only Xenogears has a bunch more RPG flavoring that makes it a little bit different. It's probably a weird observation, but I couldn't disconnect the two, and I still can't today! Where this game will always stick with me is in the characters -- Fei, Elly, Citan, Franz, Grahf, Krelian, Cain, Headz, Franz, Billy's weird Shadow Hearts background, Franz, Id, Bart's ear destroying voice, the Captain, Miang. There's a whole cast here, from the main party and villains to the insignificant but unique NPCs, that are all memorable and enjoyable. I'm sure there's a cast bigger than Xenogears out there, but I struggle to think of one that's as good while being as big. 35) Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) Mario Galaxy is, to me, proof that Nintendo still has the same "magic" that helped them create games like Mario 3 and Ocarina of Time. This is one of those rare games where, I think, everyone should able to derive some form enjoyment. I know there are people who don't care for it, or even outright dislike it, but that's always kinda surprised me. Maybe it's the fact that it's another 3D Mario, and that it's on the Wii and uses the Wii Remote, but I think Galaxy is actually closer to its 2D brothers than any of the 3D games. Sure, there might be a hub, but the levels are very linear, point A to point B affairs; there's no 'adventure' aspect either, this isn't Mario 64 with a new coat of paint; and the level design is clever, creative, and varied. That was the thing about the past two 3D Mario games -- the levels didn't feel very inspired or fun. I mean, they weren't bad, but I don't ever remember playing them and thinking 'wow, that was great -- what an awesome level.' I got that feeling a bunch of times in Galaxy, it was one cool moment after another, with the gameplay constantly going in an every so slightly different direction with new obstacles and challenges that kept things fresh. I can recall a bunch of worlds that I thought were pretty impressive -- Gusty Garden, Freezeflame, Toy Time (minus the awful spring section), Melty Molten, Dreadnought, Battle Rock, Rolling Green. There's not many parts of Galaxy I'd call boring or uninspired. Course, you can't talk about Mario Galaxy without mentioning the gravity mechanic. I think the successes this game has had are all owed to the idea of gravity affecting everything you do. It always kinda has, but not with the same importance as here. There a some awesome images floating around showing people manipulating different platforms and planets to make Mario do some crazy pointless stuff. It does nothing to make the game different, or shorter or whatever -- there's no sequence breaking or anything -- but it's cool to see and do. That's probably the game's biggest triumph: it's fun to just play, whether there's a purpose or goal for you or not. You can pick the game up and run around jumping everywhere and get some decent enjoyment from it. There's not many games I'd say that about, but it applies here. Galaxy's physics are that good. I didn't think Mario in space was such a great idea when it was announced, but it's probably the best thing to happen to the series since the original SMB. I'm not sure where you take the series from here, but I think it's in very capable hands, which is more than can be said for Nintendo's other franchises. The series may not be as popular today with people as it was in the past but the quality has never been better. oh, also, the music is awesome -- orchestrated soundtracks superior. 34) Jade Empire (Xbox) Jade Empire was my first -- and so far only -- Western RPG. I'm not sure why I decided to play it, especially so long after its original release, but I downloaded it on the PC last year out of the blue and gave it a run. There were two major points that hooked me from the beginning: 1) the setting -- being set around a sort of mythical, fantasy China where martial arts are at the center of everything is my kinda style; and 2) the gameplay being some weird combination of an Action RPG / beat-em-up. Those are two things that, either separate or together, you don't seem from Western developers, especially as it concerns RPGs. You're either getting space fantasy with guns, or D&D fantasy with swords. I like that Jade Empire was something completely outside the norm all around -- the setting, the gameplay, the style. Because this was my first WRPG, I hadn't been beat over the head with a lot of the conventions that are standard of the genre. This was my first experience with the branching dialogue trees, innumerable sidequests, and the good / evil system that I think every one of these games uses to some degree. I'll admit, it was pretty cool. I thought the dialogue was sharp and the voice acting was solid; the story itself wasn't entirely original, but I didn't mind that because I thought it was enjoyable. I know there's some BioWare chart floating around showing how cliche their stories usually are, but who cares as long as it's fun and interesting. With RPGs, you're not going to find the most unique tales, anyway. But yeah, I thought it was kinda cool being able to develop my character based on the choices I made during story sequences, or helping other characters out with sidequests. With games like these I have a hard time being a dick, so my good was a paragon of justice and heroism and open palm. Also, my guy looked like this -- Evil doesn't want to mess with this. I actually thought about putting this game higher, but I never did actually finish it. I got pretty far, almost through the ending, but my PC started acting up and I lost all my progress. Now that I have my 360 all hooked up and online, I'll probably grab this on XBL. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting a good WRPG that isn't part shooter. I thought about trying another WRPG, but I'm not sure where to go with that. Dragon Age seems the most appropriate, but I've heard some mixed things there. 33) Genji: Dawn of the Samurai (PS2) People know about Genji for all the wrong reasons. "So there's this Giant Enemy Crab" -- Sony may have single-handedly ruined any goodwill this franchise may have had with that E3 2006 demonstration. After something like that, you're almost instantly relegating your series into joke status. I'm not sure too many people were even aware of the series before that, so I'm not sure how much damage was truly done -- but it was enough to ward anyone off from this series for good, which is a shame. For those who don't know, though, Genji is basically Sony Japan's answer to God of War. It's based around The Tale of the Heike, which is book about the war between the Minamoto and Taira clans that battled for control over Japan around 1200 AD. There's a bunch of fantasy elements thrown into the mix -- demons, magic, giant enemy lions -- so it isn't trying to be a realistic retelling or anything, which is where the comparison to God of War comes in. The other half of that is that the production values in this game are very high -- the CG is top notch, the graphics are colorful and vibrant, the voice acting is solid (the Japanese voice track was kept for the US and Europe localizations), and the controls are fluid. I was actually really impressed by this game, especially since I picked it up for $5 in the bargain bin at GameStop. The interesting thing about Genji is, despite the fact that it's an action game, it plays closer to an Action RPG than anything else. You have an RPG style level up / item / equipment system; battles are usually confined to specific spaces once you enter a zone that triggers them (they aren't random, and you don't go into a separate screen, but enemies jump out and a barrier goes up until you beat them -- it's sort of like Okami, in a way); and the combat system itself isn't particularly deep. My first thought on the combat system was that it was a simplified Devil May Cry, which still holds true to some extent, but then as I got further along into the game I realized it was like a real mix of an action game and a RPG -- the best of both worlds, in a sense. I thought that was cool. I wouldn't mind seeing ARPGs take the route that Genji did. Crisis Core is the only game I can think of that did something along those lines, but even that was more RPG than this. The other cool thing was having two different characters. At a certain point, you'll run into Benkei -- he's a huge, hulking monk who carries an giant club to beat people with -- and he offers a whole different style gameplay over Yoshitsune. Benkei is slow and powerful, Yoshitsune is fast and weak. The levels are designed around both characters, too, so regardless of who you're playing you'll be able to progress, but the thing I thought was nice was having to use both to get through areas and solve puzzles. These aren't Zelda tier puzzles or anything, but they're cool little areas that give you something besides combat. But yeah, fun game. The downsides are that the game is only about 5 hours long, and it doesn't have the replay value of other action games, so once you run through this once or twice that's about all you'll get out of it. It's a good time for those 5 hours, though, and some of the more surprising game purchases I've made lately. 32) Castle Crashers (XBLA) I only bought this game a week ago, but it is so good. I've gone through it twice now -- once with Kleenex and Repus, once with tran -- and both times were great fun. There's something special about co-op beat-em-up games, because you can play them near endlessly doing the same things over and over again without it getting stale. Castle Crashers doesn't do anything too different from what you expect of a game of this genre, but it just gets everything right. It feels good to play and has the right amount of challenge without becoming either too mindless and boring or too frustrating. I know there's an Insane Mode or something that you unlock once you beat the game the first time, but I haven't gone through that yet. Hear you need to at least have a level 15 character to start with. There is one thing that really urks me with this game, though, and that's the depth perception. Sometimes it is just near impossible to get evened up with an enemy so that you can attack them, especially bosses. That's one area where 2D can be bad and confusing. It's not too bad, but during both games I've had it happen and crop up, maybe nowhere more than the part where you have to play volleyball in the desert. That thing can be damn annoying when you think you're lined up with the ball and then you whiff. I'm not sure there's an easy fix for this, maybe giving your character a wider hitbox or something. I dunno. Also, boss rankings -- Organ Knight > Frost King > Cyclops > Cyclops II > Evil Wizard > Catfish > Barbarian > Dragon and Sock Puppet > Corn Boss. I probably forgot some, but these are the main ones I remember. Castle Crashers will probably keep getting better for me as I continue to play it. It's one of those games that won't likely ever go away, and is something you can always pick up and play regardless of what you're in the mood for. It will probably be higher if you asked me in a few months, but here it is for now. 31) Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (Xbox) Splinter Cell is a better stealth series than Metal Gear Solid. I know there will be almost unanimous disagreement with that from people on the board, but it really is. MGS is a better overall series -- and there are two games from said series much higher on this list than Chaos Theory -- but in terms of which game delivers better stealth gameplay there's not much question. That might actually be why people (here) tend to dislike Splinter Cell -- the draw is in the gameplay, as opposed to the story -- because you never hear people talk much about the gameplay in MGS, it's almost like it's a necessary evil to get to the cutscenes. With SC, it's the other way around. You want to get through the cutscenes (what few of them there are) to get back to necksnapping guys while hanging from a ceiling. Sam Fisher is Batman. There are a lot of cool mechanics that I love about Chaos Theory, but none more than the light / dark idea. The complete reliance on lighting is something I haven't seen since this game came out. This game is dark, like literally dark, to the point that you often can't see Sam Fisher without flipping on your night vision goggles. This is a game where even a small lightbulb can be all the difference between you getting a quick and easy kill, or having to duck behind cover and getting into a firefight. Light -- anything that emits it -- is probably the real enemy of Chaos Theory, more than the guards you're tasked with sneaking past. The other nice thing is that the stealth feels good. To me, if I have to pull out my rifle and take multiple shots at a guy I feel like I've done something wrong. It's gotta be one well placed shot, if any shots at all, or nothin'. If I remember right, you actually got punished at the end of the level on your score for taking getting into too many firefights and killing too many people unnecessarily. The over-the-shoulder mechanics in Chaos Theory are good enough to make you want to start getting trigger happy, but the rest of the game just demands that you don't -- and that's a good thing. 30) Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI (PC) Well, here's another one no one has played, so let's go ahead and get this out of the way. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of my favorite books; turn-based strategy is one of my favorite genres -- a turn-based strategy game based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Sold. I'm trying to think of what I can say about this game, but it's hard to come to go into detail about a strategy game that no one has played, especially one with as many complexities as ROTK. There's a lot about the game I don't quite understand even now because I haven't put in the same amount of hours as I have something like Civilization. I think there's a plenty of the same appeal, though -- there's diplomacy, there's war, there's city management, individual general management. There's a lot to this game, and it's very slow paced. A single game can take hours to finish, and it's not something you generally want to do in one sitting because it can wear on you. You move at a snail's pace in your quest to conquer and reunite China, and it's very easy to get dominated by the AI if you don't know what you're doing and how everything works. In a way, it's a bit unforgiving, but it's also really enjoyable. Here it is - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebiYIG-3mX8 29) Final Fantasy IV (DS) Final Fantasy IV has always been a favorite of mine, even with all its problems across its many iterations. The original SNES version of the game is almost unplayable at this point -- it's brutally slow paced, it's glitchy, it's battle seem almost random in who gets to go and when, and the difficulty is all over the place. If someone says they played FFIV for the first time today, and that's the version they played, I can totally understand them coming away very unimpressed. It simply has not aged well. But then Square knocked it out of the park with the remake on the DS. They overhauled practically everything -- the battle system is new, there are entirely different mechanics, boss patterns are totally changed, there's voice acting, there's an ATB bar that makes sense, there's challenge that doesn't feel unfair and cheap. It's an RPG remade for modern times, and every issue was addressed, and new things added that just add that much more to it. Well, okay, so we didn't need RYDIA'S MATH CHALLENGE, but what can you do there. This is one of those RPGs that I don't play for the story. I won't try to make it sound like people who started at FFVII can't appreciate what it has to offer or anything, but if you're in it for an interesting, engaging tale you're not gonna find it here. A defining moment in the game is when one character jumps off of an airship -- smiling -- with a bomb to allow you to escape a volcano. The bomb somehow seals it shut. And he somehow lives, breaks free of this sealed volcano, and meets up with you later to reveal his latest creation. I think that's how it goes, anyway. When you think about, it's the most genius thing to come from Final Fantasy. If you let FFIV's story just come at you, you can find it enjoyable. If you try to pick it apart and take it seriously, you'll end up wondering what people see in it. Like I was saying, I don't play this for its story. Even the DS version, which tries its hardest to make it feel more legit, doesn't do too good a job. The battle system, though? Too good. This might be the best version of the ATB system in any FF game. Battles move at a quick pace, there's some awesome strategies you can use to defeat bosses in unconventional ways, and there's an auto-battle button that makes tedious random encounters seem like nothing. Augments let you have some degree of customization to your characters, too. Ever wanted Cecil to have Yang's Kick ability? You can do that here. FFIV has slipped a bit for me. I absolutely adored the DS version when it came out, but I look back on it a little less favorably than before. That said, it's still a top 3 Final Fantasy. Good stuff. 28) Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (PS2) I don't think I play any other games as long as I do Street Fighter. For me, these are one time purchases that last a decade -- in the 90s it was SF2, in the 00s it was SF3, and the next decade is going to be all about SF4. I put a ton of time into SF3, almost as much as I did with SF2; I got pretty good at it, not tournament level good, but I had a strong grip on the game's mechanics and knew my chosen characters inside and out. I was all about this game. But there are two problems I've noticed over the years, ones that don't really affect my enjoyment of the game too much but are noticeable enough to make me kinda think about it. The first is that the cast of new characters is pretty rotten. I know that people love the weird freaks in 3rd Strike, but I could never get into any of them, save for Yun and Yang. A lot of the characters had similar attributes to the old SF2 crew, just not nearly as fun to play and without the cool designs. The second is that the game is crazy unbalanced. There are three or four great characters and then a whole lot of average in SF3. Chun Li absolutely wrecks this game from top to bottom -- which isn't totally bad because Chun is awesome -- with Yun being the only one who does a good job of countering her. People complain about Sagat in SF4, but man. SA2 unstoppable. The bit about the characters actually irks me quite a bit, because I think having an appealing set of characters in a fighting game is crucial, right under the actual fighting mechanics in importance. But anyway, the rest of 3S is great -- the tempo of matches is perfect, in my mind, even if matches seem a bit slow when you watch them; the parry system is great, simple in execution but hard to master; the 2D animations are some of the best I've seen in a game; and the overall mechanics just work so well. I can understand why this game was overlooked when it released, but it's a shame that more people didn't play it, outside of the hardcore fighting types. Hopefully with 3rd Strike Online coming out for XBLA / PSN more people will get a chance to play it. Awesome game, though just a bit short of its predecessor and successor. Top 10 Characters ??? Category:User Projects